Speaker 1Shut up, and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, emcee, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you. Hey Rockstars, Reggie Dawson, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back, thank you so much for tuning in. Diving in, you're not ready. You. Are. Not. Ready. I bet you've heard that before. I bet you it hurts, stings a little bit, doesn't it? Keep listening. Don't stop this podcast just yet. Let me get to the reason I'm telling you, you're not ready. Everybody dreams of big time success. I'm talking thousands. I'm talking thousands of people in the audience. You got dreams, kid? I got dreams too. We all want this big successful career, but you're not ready for that. Not yet. All those celebrities, all those entertainers out there that you see performing in front of those thousands of people, millions of people, with those specials on TV and performing New Year's Eve and getting to do their special charity concerts and everything. All those entertainers performing in front of the millions of people at the music festivals. Those people, they took their time, they paid their dues, they took their steps, they went step by step, just like you have to do. The reason you don't have that big success right now, the reason that you don't have those millions of people coming to your shows, the reason you're not performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people, is because you're not ready for it yet. You got to go through the steps. You got to take your baby steps, just like, wait for it, everybody else. You can't perform for a thousand people. If you haven't performed for 10, you can't perform for 10,000 people. If you haven't performed for a hundred, you can't perform for a hundred thousand people. If you haven't performed for a thousand, do you see a pattern? You're going to have shows that nobody's going to show up for, but that doesn't mean that you give up. That doesn't mean that you stop. My name is Reggie Dawson. I'm a talent coach. I'm an entertainer. I'm an MC. I'm a performance artist. And I love being on stage. And I think. You love being on stage too. Otherwise you wouldn't have clicked on this podcast. The purpose of this podcast is to connect with other performers and to help them see that there are ways to always be growing and always be motivated to be better on stage. I coach performers to improve their stage presence, improve their stage presentation, and to overall perform better on stage. Part of what I do is I help people take those steps. Every little step, every little bit of progress is progress. I have a saying. I say it to my employees at work. I say it to all my coaching clients. I've said it to everyone that I've ever helped and mentored. Slow progress is still progress. One step forward is still one step forward. So what if you just went three steps back? You just took a step forward. You're one step closer to your dreams, to your goals than you were yesterday. Take the progress. Don't live a life of disappointment just because you're not getting everything that you feel like you deserve. I'm in the same boat as you. I want all this grand success with this podcast, but I've got to go through the steps. I've got to go through my 100 downloads, 1,000 downloads, 5,000 downloads. You've got to go through your crowd of 2, your crowd of 5, your crowd of 10, your crowd of 20. You've got to go through those small crowds. You even have to go through those big crowds. Backward slides that are going to happen. Sometimes I think a performance career is like a game of chutes and ladders. Well, I played snakes and ladders. I guess for most people it was called chutes and ladders. I don't know if it's like a northern, southern thing. I'm not really sure, but chutes and ladders. You know, sometimes you're going to roll the dice and you're just going to take a certain number of steps and that's going to be that. Sometimes you're going to roll the dice and you're going to take a couple of steps and you're going to be shot up to success. Sometimes you're going to roll the dice, you're going to take a couple of steps, and you're going to slide further backwards or all the way back to the beginning. The important thing is that you finish the game. Keep rolling the dice. Keep taking the chances. Keep seeking the opportunities. I've said it podcast after podcast. Opportunity's not always going to knock. Sometimes you've got to go out there and find it. Sometimes you've got to make the phone calls. Sometimes you've got to, you know, send the emails. You've got to go out and talk to people, pound the pavement. The best interactions I've ever had with promoters and other performers is face-to-face. I'm talking pounding the pavement, hitting the festivals, going to these street fairs, and talking to people. Sometimes that's how you get the furthest is those old-school face-to-face interactions, but you've got to take the steps. You cannot rush into huge success if you're not ready. You can't experience amazingly. You can't experience a huge success if you haven't experienced little success. You can't experience a sold-out crowd if you haven't experienced a sale of one ticket. All these great entertainers, all the entertainers that you see, whatever field that you're in, I don't discriminate. It doesn't matter what you do on stage. Think about the person that you emulate, the person that is, in your eyes, great at what it is you do. The greatest belly dancer. The greatest street dancer. The greatest comedian. The greatest. The greatest drag queen. The greatest burlesque dancer. The greatest ballet dancer. The greatest aerial artist. The greatest fire breather. The greatest poi spinner. Think about the greatest of what it is you do. The person that you follow that you think is just amazing and they are where you want to be. They paid their dues. They took their steps. They made those contacts. They made those networking connections. All those entertainers that you aspire to be, all those celebrity entertainers, they paid their dues. What does it mean to pay your dues? It means you gotta suffer. It means you gotta take the pain, you gotta take the heartache, you gotta take the slow nights, the empty crowds, the nobody showed ups, the nobody likes me, the I just lost followers, the oh my god, where'd my subscribers go, the my video didn't get any views, my podcast didn't get any downloads. You gotta go through all this pain and suffering, all those doors slamming in your face, all those people saying no, all those emails that never get responded to. All that, all that is paying your dues. You gotta go through all of that to experience the sweet taste of success. One thing my girlfriend says to me is you only appreciate the high times because of the low times. You know, she's talking more financially because, you know, we're going through a little bit of a tough time there a while back, but it stands true in performing as well. You can't enjoy that success if you haven't journeyed down the line. It's a long road to get there. Everyone's heard it. Success is a journey. It's not a destination. But if you don't go through that journey, you're not actually successful. Maybe you got lucky. Maybe you hit the lottery. Maybe you happen to. Maybe you're a one hit wonder. You hit it big with this one thing that you do. But then what? If you take the steps and you go through the disappointments and the pains and the failures and the mistakes, you go through that hard time of the success journey, you're going to know what's next. When you get that instant success, when you, quote unquote, get lucky, you don't know what to do next because you're not prepared for it. You haven't failed and fallen backwards five hundred times in preparation for this next step. The baby steps is what gets you there. Those baby steps, those little things that you have to do along the way, those little pains and little pricks in your side and all those little disappointments. You go through. That's the journey to success. I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer. Don't get me wrong. Every performance is an opportunity to be successful. Every performance is an opportunity to be amazing. Every performance is an opportunity to truly be great on stage. But you can't skip the journey. You can't skip the little successes to get to the big successes. You're not ready for that level of success. Until you've gone through the entire journey to prepare you for that level of success. I hope I haven't scared you off not trying to be a Debbie Downer. I want to motivate you. I want to keep you going. I want to help you out. I want to help you get better on stage and become the performer that you dream of being. Subscribe to my email list, Rockstar Lounge. Go to beingonstage.com. Put in your name and email and you'll be subscribed. You'll also get a copy of my free book, Confidence On Stage. And you can also join our Facebook group network of other performers like you. There's a bunch of different ones already in there. Acrobats, drag queens, dancers, singers, podcasters, speakers, musicians. Come join us, network, hang out, tell us what you can do. Show us videos, post pictures, beingonstage.com/group. Or you just search the being on stage group on Facebook. Again, not trying to be a Debbie Downer, trying to get you motivated, trying to get you out there, trying to help you take those steps, move forward, even though it may be slow. Remember, I can't say it enough, slow progress. is still progress. Take it and keep moving forward. Keep on shining.
PodcastTranscript AI